Stringed instruments have been known since ancient times. These included such instruments as the lute, a guitarlike instrument with a sound box and fretboard. A New Kingdom (ancient Egypt, 1380 BC) bronze in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts a dancing Nubian raised on his toes with one knee cocked, left hand high working a fingerboard and right hand plucking the strings in a pose which might be illustrative of a modern rock musician.
But the lute has a much more ancient history, perhaps originating with West Semitic nomadic people who brought the instrument to Mesopotamia, where the archaeological record includes representations dating back to the Akkadian period (2350 to 2170 B.C.), being introduced to the Egyptians, perhaps at the end of the Middle Kingdom Hyksos dynasties (XV to XVII dynasty, 1730 to 1580 B.C.).
In more recent times, stringed lute-like musical instruments continue to be among the most popular instruments. Folk artists throughout the United States have used the guitar, sometimes one of the homemade variety, in a wide range of musical genres including blues, bluegrass, and so forth. Not surprisingly, with the advent of the electronic age in the early twentieth century, artists began searching for ways to amplify music produced by standard instruments. Perhaps the first “instrument” to be amplified was the human voice. Not far behind, however, was the guitar, which could be played in close proximity to the microphone, particularly during interludes in the music where the performer was not singing.
As musicians searched for ways to amplify the output of the stringed musical instrument, a variety of approaches came to be adopted in an attempt to obtain an electrical output from stringed instruments, such as the guitar. These included the use of transducers which may be mounted on a microphone stand or mounted on the sound box. Alternatively, the “microphone” may take the form of a transducer mounted on the body of the instrument, operating using a range of detection techniques, such as electromagnetic, piezoelectric or mechanical detection. Such alternative techniques have generally been the most widely accepted, due to a series of problems with using microphones.
However, over the years, artists playing acoustic stringed instruments have introduced a wide variety of techniques into the music surrounding these instruments. While, perhaps, the ancients only plucked the strings of the lute to achieve a musical tone which gradually decayed, later artists used the bow to produce notes of relatively constant and somewhat controllable amplitude. Modern artists employ a variety of techniques in their performances. Acoustic blues performers may rap their instruments with fingertips, palms or knuckles. Certain violin compositions, typically played by having a horsehair bundle slide across the strings, also call for the strings to be plucked.
However, microphone alternatives, despite their popularity, are not well suited for obtaining electrical signals corresponding to such a wide range of acoustic artists' performance techniques. Moreover, the amplified sound produced by such “microphone” alternatives is not comparable to that of an acoustic performance.
Accordingly, there is a need for a stringed instrument microphone which is easy to use during a performance, consistent, and rigorous in its transduction of an acoustic performance into an electrical signal for amplification. It is believed that the structure disclosed herein is the most effective solution with the style of many acoustic stringed instrument performers.